KUALA LUMPUR – Youth and Sports Minister Hannah Yeoh denied that singles shuttler Lee Zii Jia is a “golden child” of the Road To Gold (RTG) programme.
The high-performance programme was launched to give the necessary support for a select group of Malaysian athletes to hunt for gold at the Paris 2024 and Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
To be included in the programme, athletes would have to be medal winners in the previous Olympics or ranked top 10 in the world.
Zii Jia, according to the latest Badminton World Federation ranking, is 11th.
He has even announced that he will take an indefinite break from the sport after losing in the first round of the Indonesian Open recently.
The break will surely cause his rankings to fall even further.
This has led to questions about why the troubled former All England champ is still listed in the RTG programme.
Hannah, who was met at a press conference after the RTG meeting at the National Sports Council in Bukit Jalil, said everyone in the programme is treated equally.
“We don’t have a golden child. Every athlete is given the same amount of allowance, which is RM3,000 each month.
“They will receive support from the National Sports Institute to ensure they have a chance for success,” said Hannah, who is also the co-chair of RTG with Olympic Council of Malaysia president Tan Sri Mohamad Norza Zakaria.
Meanwhile, programme coordinator Datuk Stuart Ramalingam said that Zii Jia’s recent performances may not have been stellar, but based on his ranking, he is not out of the list yet.
He added that RTG athletes’ performances will be assessed every three months; only if there is no improvement will the athlete be removed from the programme. – The Vibes, June 19, 2023
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